Stats: Record 7 Million Bednights for Vienna in First Half of 2017

The Austrian capital recorded almost 7 million visitor bednights between January and June 2017, 4.2 percent more than for the same period the previous year.

"City breaks to Vienna continue to boom: The city established a new record in the first half of 2017, with visitor bednights increasing 4.2 percent to around 6,924,000," said Norbert Kettner, director of the Vienna Tourist Board, in a written release.

Vienna's highest-volume source markets in the first half of 2017 were Germany with 1,420,000 bednights (+3% on the same period the previous year), followed by Austria (1,360,000, -1%), the United States (396,000, +8%), the United Kingdom (305,000, +3%), and Italy (294,000, -7%). These were followed in places 6 to 10 by Switzerland (214,000, +/-0%), Russia (211,000, +34%), France (204,000, +18%), China (175,000, +45%) and Spain (174,000, -2%). Particularly high growth rates were also recorded for Australia (67,000 bednights, +19%), India (64,000, +15%) and Brazil (63,000, +21%).

Vienna currently has 64,000 hotel beds. The average occupancy rate of Vienna's rooms from January to June 2017 was 69 percent, with over 80 percent of all bednights attributable to international guests. Now Vienna's objective is to increase overnight stays to 18 million by the year 2020, tourism officials said. The meetings industry also has an important role to play, accounting for 12 percent of the total volume of bednights in 2016. Some 4,000 congresses, corporate events and incentives were held in Vienna last year - again a new record. For the eighth time in a row, the latest Mercer "Quality of Living" survey ranked Vienna in first place worldwide.